Maven plugin support for existing Eclipse web app

I have an existing dynamic web app (web service) project written using Eclipse Helios. I now have need (per client request) to make this a "Maven project". Using the m2eclip开发者_运维技巧se plugin I attempted to "add Maven support" via the project's Maven context menu. The result of having done this is a pom.xml file was added to the project (I don't know if anything else changed) however, this pom doesn't appear to have enough data embedded to be useful in describing the project or it's dependencies. Having zero experience with Maven I don't really know what to expect.

Is this the correct (or an acceptable) practice for adding Maven to an existing project? I see an overload of information online about Maven but most everything seems to want to start from a new Maven project; which also would be okay if I knew which archetype to start from and how to go about re-creating a web service from a Maven project.

Sorry for the run-on, stream of consciousness above, I'm not sure what question(s) to ask. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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Obviously you will have to learn how maven works. There is a good introduction book made by sonatype.

Here are some of the steps you will have to do :

1. Configure Sources, resources and tests folders
2. Configure Libraries dependencies : adding right dependencies to your pom, adding public repositories to download the dependencies
3. Define package type
4. ...

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teps .

1. Add pom.xml
2. (Very recommended is to convert to standard maven folder layout)
3. try using maven from command line like mvn package to see if it work.
4. Only after success change Eclipse files (.project .classpath)